n shattered by
the terrible affair just before Christmas, when Mr. Glendinning had
tried first to kill her, and then to cut his own throat.

Agnes said: "But I told Henry quite plainly, darling, that I would not
cease my visits to you on that account. It is both wrong and foolish to
think you or Dr. Mahony had anything to do with it--and after the
doctor was so kind, too, so VERY kind, about getting poor Mr.
Glendinning into the asylum. And so you see, dear, Henry and I have had
quite a disagreement"; and Agnes cried again at the remembrance. "Of
course, I can sympathise with his point of view.... Henry is so
ambitious. All the same, dearest, it's not quite so bad--is it?--as he
makes out. Matilda is certainly not very COMME IL FAUT--you'll forgive
my saying so, love, won't you? But I think she will suit Henry's father
in every way. No, the truth is, the old gentleman has made a great deal
of money, and we naturally expected it to fall to Henry at his death;
no one anticipated his marrying again. Not that Henry really needs the
money; he is getting on so well; and I have.... I shall have plenty,
too, by and by. But you know, love, what men are."

"Dearest Agnes! ... don't fret about it. Mr. Henry thinks too much of
you, I'm sure, to be vexed with you for long. And when he looks at it
calmly, he'll see how unfair it is to make us responsible. I'm like
you, dear; I can't consider it a misfortune. Tilly is not a lady; but
she's a dear, warm-hearted girl and will make the old man a good wife.
I only hope though, Agnes, Mr. Henry won't say anything to Richard.
Richard is so touchy about things of that sort."

The two women kissed, Polly with feelings of the tenderest affection:
the fact that, on behalf of their friendship, Agnes had pitted her will
against Mr. Henry's, endeared her to Polly as nothing else could have
done.

But when, vigilant as a mother-hen, she sought to prepare her husband
for a possible unpleasantness, she found him already informed; and her
well-meant words were like a match laid to his suppressed indignation.

"In all my born days I never heard such impudence!"

He turned embarrassingly cool to Tilly. And Tilly, innocent of offence
and quite unskilled in deciphering subtleties, put this sudden change
of front down to jealousy, because she was going to live in a grander
house than he did. For the same reason he had begun to turn up his nose
at "Old O.," or she was very much mistaken; and in vain d